Hemlock Bay

“Tell me, Sherlock,” he said, his heart thudding fast, hard beats. “We’ll be there soon. Tell me about Tammy.”

• Slowly, Tammy lowered the gun. “You think you’re pretty cute, don’t you?”

Lily slowly shook her head, so relieved she was nearly sick. She’d been ready to feel a bullet go right through her heart, to just be gone, and that was it. Sudden and final and she was dead. But she was still here, still alive, with Tammy, who was still holding that ugly gun.

The circle-it appeared Tammy wanted her in that circle, still alive. “Where is Marilyn? She’s your cousin, isn’t she?”

“You want to know about my sweet little cousin? I’m not real happy with her right now. See, she told your brother everything about me. Then he used her for bait. That was ruthless of him. I like that in a guy. She was waiting for me right there in the open, in that airport, standing next to that stupid agent who was supposed to be guarding her. From me. What a joke that was. I cut the agent’s throat, and everyone saw a crazy young man do it. Everyone believed it, but it was really me.

“You want to know why I hate your brother? It’s not hard. He killed my brother, shot my arm off, just left it dangling by a few strips of muscle, and I saw it hanging there and I thought I was going to die. And they strapped me down to this bed because your brother told them I was bad trouble, and then they cut the rest of it right off in the hospital and I nearly died. All because of your damned brother.”

Then Tammy let loose, screamed to the rafters, “One goddamned arm! Just look at me-my fucking sleeve is empty! I nearly died from the infection, damn him to hell. He shot my arm off! After I set the Ghouls on you, after they’ve gnawed you to a bloody mess, I’m going to get him, get him, GET HIM!”

Lily kept her mouth shut, tried to pull herself together enough to work on the duct tape. She wished she could raise her hands and use her teeth, but Tammy would notice that for sure. At least her hands were still bound in front of her; that might give her some chance.

Tammy drew a deep breath as she slowly lowered the gun. Her eyes focused again, on Lily. “You’re like him-stubborn.”

“How did you get past all the agents guarding the house?”

“Stupid buggers, all of them. It was easy. There’s hardly any challenge anymore. I didn’t let them see me.”

Lily didn’t want to believe anything that outrageous, but she said, “And they couldn’t see me either?”

“Oh yes. Nothing to it. Just dragged you out, wearing that cute little nightgown-sorry I didn’t get you a coat. But I figured after you realized what was going to happen to you, you’d want to feel the cold, better than being dead and not feeling anything at all. Now, little sister, move into the goddamned circle!”

“No.”

Tammy raised the gun and fired. Lily cried out, unable to help herself. She threw herself to the right, off the bale of hay, felt the hot whoosh of the bullet not an inch from her cheek, and rolled and kept rolling, pulling and twisting at the tape on her wrists. Another bullet hit a pile of moldering hay and spewed it upward.

Then Tammy stopped shooting. She walked over to Lily and stood still, staring down at her, the gun pointed at her chest. Lily looked up, frozen, afraid to move, afraid even to breathe.

Lily said, finally, “You have a problem, don’t you, Tammy? The Ghouls won’t come if I’m not staked like a tethered goat in that black circle, right? So get used to it. I’m not going anywhere.”

Tammy didn’t say a thing to that, just turned and walked away, her strides in those heavy, black boots long and solid. Lily watched her disappear into the tack room and close the door behind her, hard.

It was so silent that Lily could hear the barn groan as the rising wind hit it. Then Lily heard a scream, a woman’s scream, Tammy’s scream and two gunshots, loud, sharp.

Dillon ran out of the tack room toward her, his SIG Sauer in his hand, yelling, “Lily! Oh my God, are you all right, sweetheart? Everything’s okay. I got into the tack room, shot her before she saw me. Oh God, are you hit?”

She felt such relief she thought she’d choke on it. She yelled, “Dillon, you came! I kept her talking, knew I had to keep her talking. Oh God, she’s so scary. Then she started shooting at me and I thought it was all over-”

Lily stopped cold. Dillon was nearly to her, not more than six feet away, when suddenly Lily didn’t see her brother anymore. She saw Tammy. She wasn’t holding Dillon’s SIG Sauer; she was holding that same little ugly gun that was hers. Her brain froze. Just simply froze. She couldn’t accept what she was seeing, what was right in front of her, she just couldn’t. Oh, God.

“Honey, are you okay?”

It was Tammy’s voice, no longer Dillon’s.

Then Lily realized it really was Tammy. She thought she’d seen Dillon because she wanted to so much, and Tammy wanted her to. And Tammy thought it was working.

Oh God, oh God.

Lily said, “I’m okay. I’m so glad you’re here, Dillon, so glad.”

Tammy dropped to her knees beside Lily and turned her onto her side. “Let me get that tape off you, sweetheart. There, let me just slip the knife under the tape. Good, you’ve already loosened it. You could have gotten yourself free and away, couldn’t you?” Then Tammy Tuttle pulled Lily against her and hugged her, kissed her hair. Stroked her single hand down her back. Lily felt Tammy’s slight breasts against hers.

Tammy had laid the gun on the ground, just a hand’s length away from her, not more than six inches. “Just hold me, Dillon. Oh, God, I was so scared. I’m so glad you came so quickly.”

She cried, sobbed her heart out, felt Tammy squeeze her and kiss her hair again. Lily’s hand moved slowly toward the gun, slowly, until her fingers touched the butt.

Tammy swept up the gun, tucked it into her waistband, and said, “Let me help you up, honey. That’s right. You’re okay now. Sherlock is just outside with the other agents. Let’s go see them.”

Tammy was holding her tightly against her side, walking toward the barn doors. No, not really toward the doors. She was swerving to the left now, toward that big black circle.

Just as Tammy flung her onto her back and into the circle, Lily grabbed the gun from Tammy’s waistband, raising it at her.

Tammy didn’t seem to notice that Lily had her gun, that she was pointing it at her. She’d turned toward the barn doors, raised her head, and yelled, “Ghouls! No young bloods for you this time, but a soft, sweet morsel, a female. Bring your axes, bring your knives, and hack her apart! Come here, Ghouls!”

The barn doors blew inward. Lily saw whirling snow blowing in, and something else in that snow. A dust devil, that was it. That was what Dillon had seen as well, wasn’t it?

The snow seemed to coalesce into two distinct formations, like tornadoes, whirling and dipping, coming toward her. But they were white, twisting this way and that, in constant motion, coming closer and closer. Lily felt frozen in place, just stared at those white cones coming closer, not more than a dozen feet away now, nearly to the black circle now. She had to move, had to.

Tammy saw that something was wrong. She pulled a knife out of her boot leg, a long, vicious knife. She raised that knife and ran toward Lily.

Lily didn’t think, just raised the gun and yelled, “No, Tammy, it’s over. Yes, I see you. The minute you got close, I saw you, not my brother. The Ghouls won’t help you.”

Just as Tammy leaped at her, the knife raised, the blade gleaming cold, Lily pulled the trigger.

Tammy yelled and kept coming. Lily pulled the trigger again and again, and Tammy Tuttle was kicked off her feet and hurled a good six feet by the force of the bullets. She sprawled on her back, gaping holes in her chest. Her one arm was flung out, the empty sleeve flat on the ground.